Themes

"There is nothing which a prudent man must shun more carefully than living with a view to popularity and giving serious thought to the things esteemed by the multitude, instead of making sound reason his guide of life, so that, even if he must gainsay all men and fall into disrepute and incur danger for the sake of what is honourable, he will in no wise choose to swerve from what has been recognized as right."

"Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less In company a very pleasant fellow, Had been the favorite of full many a mess Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow; And though his meaning they could rarely guess, Yet still they deign'd to hiccup or to bellow The glorious meed of popular applause, Of which the first ne'er knows the second cause."

"Some shout him, and some hang upon his car, To gaze in his eyes, and bless him. Maidens wave Their 'kerchiefs, and old women weep for joy; While others, not so satisfied, unhorse The gilded equipage, and turning loose His steeds, usurp a place they well deserve."

"Modica voluptas laxat animos et temperat."

"Bonarum rerum consuetudo pessima est."

"Give me neither poverty nor riches."

"Id arbitror Adprime in vita esse utile, Ut ne quid nimis."

"Take this at least, this last advice, my son: Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on: The coursers of themselves will run too fast, Your art must be to moderate their haste."

"Modus omnibus in rebus, soror, optimum est habitu; Nimia omnia nimium exhibent negotium hominibus ex se."

"There is a limit to enjoyment, though the sources of wealth be boundless, And the choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation."

"He knows to live who keeps the middle state, And neither leans on this side nor on that."

"Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum."

"The moderation of fortunate people comes from the calm which good fortune gives to their tempers."

"Auream quisquis mediocritatem deligit tutus caret obsoleti sordibus tecti, caret invidenda sobrius aula."

"Le juste milieu."

"This only grant me, that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high."

"Medio tutissimus ibis."

"Give us enough but with a sparing hand."

"Aus Mässigkeit entspringt ein reines Glück."

"Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice."

"Be moderate in your walking and your talking."

"The most necessary disposition to relish pleasures is to know how to be without them."

"Souhaitez donc mediocrité."

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot."

"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."

"Magni pectoris est inter secunda moderatio."

"If some people asserted that the earth rotated from east to west and others that it rotated from west to east, there would always be a few well-meaning citizens to suggest that perhaps there was something to be said for both sides, and maybe it did a little of one and a little of the other; or that the truth probably lay between the extremes and perhaps it did not rotate at all."

"Moderation, in the pursuit of honors or riches, is the only security against disappointment and vexation. A wise man, therefore, will prefer the simplicity of rustic life to the magnificence of courts."

"Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl-chain of all virtues."

"The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not."

"You may ask what then will become of the fundamental principles of equity and fair play which our constitutions enshrine; and whether I seriously believe that unsupported they will serve merely as counsels of moderation. I do not think that anyone can say what will be left of those principles; I do not know whether they will serve only as counsels; but this much I think I do know — that a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save; that a society where that spirit flourishes, no court need save; that in a society which evades its responsibility by thrusting upon the courts the nurture of that spirit, that spirit in the end will perish. What is the spirit of moderation? It is the temper which does not press a partisan advantage to its bitter end, which can understand and will respect the other side, which feels a unity between all citizens—real and not the factitious product of propaganda—which recognizes their common fate and their common aspirations—in a word, which has faith in the sacredness of the individual."

"Essential to Santayana's position is the Greek ideal of the "life of reason," a conception of the good life as requiring a continual commitment to the pursuit of self-knowledge, discipline, and an unromantic determination to harmonize rather than indulge the passions. It is the ideal of or moderation venerated by classic philosophers like Aristotle and despised by modern ones like Bertrand Russell."

"Be moderate, be moderate. Why tell you me of moderation? The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste, And violenteth in a sense as weak As that which causeth it: how can I moderate it?"

"Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man."

"Virtue ... is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme."

"Monks, these two extremes ought not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the household life. What are the two? There is addiction to indulgence of sense-pleasures, which is low, coarse, the way of ordinary people, unworthy, and unprofitable; and there is addiction to self-mortification, which is painful, unworthy, and unprofitable. Avoiding both these extremes, the Tathagata has realized the Middle Path; it gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to calm, to insight, to enlightenment and to Nibbana. And what is that Middle Path realized by the Tathagata? ... It is the Noble Eightfold Path, and nothing else, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration."

"A formative experience of my life was a lesson that one can have too much of a good thing. I used to love rose- and violet-petal chocolate creams, and once bought a big bag of them to eat in the theater. I finished them before the curtain went up and sat through the play — Ibsen, I think it was — in a state of nausea. I expect that if I read too much Agatha Christie in succession, I should experience the literary equivalent of that sensation. Not too much of a good thing: there must be worse mottos for life."

"Things are true or false in themselves. Truth cannot be affected by opinions; it cannot be changed, established, or affected by martyrdom. An error cannot be believed sincerely enough to make it a truth."

"The defendant in this case has attacked certain beliefs, thought by the Christian world to be sacred. Yet, after all, nothing is sacred but the truth, and by truth I mean what a man sincerely and honestly believes."

"Ridentem dicere verum, Quid vetat."

"The truth shall make you free."

"But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out."

"Nuda veritas. (Nudaque veritas)."

"There is no truth in him."

"Quid verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum."

"Truth like a torch, the more 'tis shook, it shines."

"One truth discovered is immortal, and entitles its author to be so: for, like a new substance in nature, it cannot be destroyed."

"Her terrible tale You can't assail, With truth it quite agrees; Her taste exact For faultless fact Amounts to a disease."

"Dare to be true, nothing can need a lie; A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby."

"Lest men suspect your tale untrue, Keep probability in view."